


Worst Date

by CannibalKats



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Decisions, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 11:25:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5332418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CannibalKats/pseuds/CannibalKats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU with Iron Bull and Asala.  Bull asks her out in the middle of the week and against her better judgement she agrees.  She expects the worst but is surprised.  Too bad she forgot about her friend traps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worst Date

Guilty, the truth was she felt guilty. She’d made an assumption and, like the saying says, made herself the asshole. Bull had seemed like any tough guy asshole asking her out at work, but he’d come in with Krem, a regular and a good guy. Then he asked her to a bar on a Wednesday.

But he’d been nice, and he’d tried to make her feel special. He couldn’t have known she knew the band, he couldn’t have known she freelanced for the bar. She was a show off and on a Wednesday night on no notice how could anyone have known it wasn’t the usual deal.

It started when they got there. It started with her trying to be nice, not letting on that she’d been there after he talked about what a great place it was the whole ride there. But then habit kicked in when she saw Cullen at the door and she breezed past without paying the cover Bull had made a joke about the benefits of pretty girls.

Then, looking like the cat that got the canary, he proclaimed that he’d gotten her on with the band. She should have told him then that she knew the band, but instead she showed off again, singing the song he’d asked for an then, in normal Asala fashion staying on to show off with the band for one more song.

But he’d pushed through and now, after closing, here he is sitting at the bar with her friends, not even a second glance when Cullen asks her if she’s staying with him. And for her part Asala thinks _maybe_ this guy deserves a chance at an actual date. That is if she hasn’t totally blown it.

Then someone suggested truth or dare.

“Come on Sall you picked truth. It’s not even a hard one.” Varric rolls his eyes at the giggling elder Hawke twins.

“Yeah fine, the twins.”

The table erupts in laugher and Asala grabs the bottle of whiskey off the bar and does a shot.

Bull raises his eyebrow.

“At the same time?” Dorian asks, intrigued.

“Gross, dude,” she laughs.

“Maker Sall, you got a thing for assholes?” Varric laughs shaking his head. Garret shoves him but Marian snorts.

“Hey, I’m turning over a new leaf.” Bull chuckles and all heads slowly turn to look at him. “Hey Sera what’cha got for me?”

“No no no,” Cullen laughs leaning forward. “Why didn’t I know this?”

“I don’t tell you everything.”

“I know what colour underwear you have on right now.”

“It was years ago, and you hated them.”

Marian cackles.

“I didn’t hate them.”

“I asked you if you knew them and you said you thought they were one dead house pet from being serial killers.”

“I still think that,” Varric laughs

“Yeah yeah, Asala donalded the twins, it’s my turn,” Sera cackles.

“Yeah, truth or dare Sera?”

“Truth.”

“Where _does_ your stash of cash behind the bar come from?”

“The bank. Ok Cully-wully, truth or dare?”

“Nooo,” laughs Varric, setting a beer in front of the small woman. “All we get is the bank?”

“Well that’s where I get it from, innit.”

Asala slides five dollars across the bar. “It was worth a shot.”

“Cully,” Sera croons. “Truth or dare?”

The bouncer lets out a long suffering sigh. “Dare.”

“Well look at you, taking risks.” Dagna chirps, and pulls Sera closer.

“Hit and miss your lemon.”

“What?”

“I dare you, to kiss you girlfriend.”

“You mean Asala.”

“You have another pair of tits hanging around you all the time?”

“Sera, gross.”

“Yeah yeah, like a brother. Whatever get snogging.”

Bull growls under his breath and if anyone else notices they don’t let on. Leaning on elbows and crowding each other to get a better look she feels more like an accident victim than anything else. Cullen was still leaning against the bar looking like he was about to refuse. She inhales and tries to make eye contact with Bull. Patient bear of a man he is, but everyone has a limit and he’s not looking at her, he’s stubbornly avoiding her face.

It’s bad luck, Karmic retribution for the rest of the evening that she turns to bow out just as he leans in for the kiss. It’s all the passion of kissing your mom. A closed mouth, comically puckered, kiss on an unfortunate moving target that lands somewhere between her top lip and right nostril but Bull has had enough.

Enough of cackling friends, enough of being blown off at every turn, enough of the _worst_ date in history. Cheers erupt as the door closes and Asala breaths heavy through flaring nostrils. She follows him without a word to her friends. Cold November wind bites at her bare arms and she hugs herself and catches up to him on the corner.

“Hey,” her voice is sharp, contrasting the quiet stillness of 3am. “I’m really, sorry.” The air burns her lungs when she breathes in and by the time he turns around she’s pretty sure her nose is frozen.

He’s already speaking when he turns, something biting, something she deserves to hear. It dies on his lips when he sees her standing in the lamplight. Nose and cheeks bright pink from the cold and the liquor, she’s hugging herself, rubbing bare arms with frozen fingers.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m ok,” she shrugs. Freezing. “I just. I was an asshole. I’m really sorry. I don’t usually do this.”

“What? Fuck up dates?”

Asala cackles. “No, I do that a lot. I’m actually really good at that.”

“I can tell.”

“No. I’m sorry. I can’t even apologize right.”

“Andraste’s tits, just take my coat.”

“No I’m ok.” She waves him off. “I’m just— What I’m trying to say is; I don’t normally go out with guys because I like them.”

Bull frowns but she stops him before he can say anything.

“I mean I _like_ some _people_ , and I do _stuff_ but I don’t— I don’t go on dates. I don’t usually want to see them more than once, you know?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “My friends aren’t as awful as they act. I mean they’re assholes, but they’re good people, they just thought they were helping. I’m an asshole.”

“So what, your friends chase people off for you?”

“It’s easier.”

“Easier?”

“Look I have kids, people have a hard time with that. They think if I sleep with them they have to marry me. Some of them are really fucking excited and others are exactly the opposite of that, and there’s not usually an in-between and it’s fucking stupid but it’s happened enough that my friends have standing orders to help me be insufferable.”

“Why didn’t you stop them?”

“Because I’m an asshole and a show off.”

“And the blonde guy?”

“Cullen?”

“The bouncer.”

“Yeah, we’re just friends. I live in his spare room when my kids are with their Dad.”

“Have you ev—”

“Oh _hell_ no.”

“Really?”

“Really. We kissed once, when we were really drunk and it was _the_ most awkward thing ever.” The big man has relaxed a little but before she can invite him back in his cab shows up. “If there’s anything I can do to make this up, anything I can say to get a do over?”

Bull reaches into his pocket and tosses her something. “You can try to think of something between now and when you drop my truck off at the site tomorrow.”

She nods and shoves the keys into her pocket as he gets in the cab.

 

 


End file.
